Ineffable
by Tijuana Pirate
Summary: Sometimes heroes can be wrong but it's not usually wrong to try and save them. Vincent facing Hojo one final time in Midgar and Tifa's intervention. OGC canon, Tifa's pov.


**Author's Notes**: I enjoy ignoring new canon. I have no idea what Squenix was thinking when they changed the final confrontation between Vincent and Hojo in Midgar in FFdc. I personally think that it was moderately important that Vincent _didn't _have to fight alone in that final scene but that's just me. I've played FF7 quite a few times and, fairly often, my party was Vincent, Tifa, and Cloud. It certainly was for _that_ scene.

I have sympathy for martial artists because I am one. Eventually, anyone with any amount of skill has to face something like this. Hopefully not quite as stark but, there it is. For Tifa, I imagine that it'd be something a little more personal. Hence the story.

Enjoy.

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Ineffable

When I was younger, my mother used to tell me to take things on faith. I didn't really understand what she meant then.

Standing at the base of that tower, watching you climb all those long stairs, moving faster than even you should have been able too… I ran desperately trying to keep up – not because I was afraid that you'd _fail_ but because I'd seen the look in your eye you it hadn't been one that I'd recognized. It had _frightened_ me and so I ran up those steps with you, Vincent Valentine. Up and away... I didn't really have a choice, did I?

I heard you speaking to him but it was as if your voice was far away from me, carried away in the wind. I still didn't understand and the man that I saw there, he wasn't a man that I knew. I'll never understand you Vincent; that much is clear. There are too many pieces of you that I can't see anymore – that you can't see anymore… and the parts of you that creep up, I can't stand to look at them. They frighten me.

Hojo revelled in it; that was what petrified me when I stood there with you. It was like he looked into you and saw himself; saw the thing that he had made and was _glad for it_. You saw it – I know you did – because I felt it when you levelled Death Penalty - _what she had given you_ – and I knew what you desired most in the world and it wasn't justice; it was far from justice; it was so far from justice that it made me ill to look at you. You weren't the man that I knew and I doubt that even Lucrecia would've recognized you then. I will hate that woman until the end of my days because _she_ put that look in your eyes and not anyone else. Gods, ghosts – ghosts should stay dead. I wish that she had _died_.

But she didn't Vincent – she didn't and twice I've had to see echoes of someone I don't recognize in you because of her. The first was a flash – _stop_, she'd told you and you had but not before I'd caught that glimpse of something – young vulnerable _stupid_ – unknown in your eyes. And then when they looked red again, not blue, I couldn't recognize you. You'd fallen down ten layers into yourself and at the end you told us that you were becoming less human. Less _human_.

I would've killed her then if I could've and that's part of what had frightened me – my reaction, inexplicable and intense. I'd been uneasy about that ghost of a woman before; now I hated her.

I can't tell you what it was like for me, Vincent, to stand beside you up on that platform. Cloud was off to my side, the others away, but you were all I saw. I didn't care about what Hojo was doing – or maybe I did but it was distant, so far away… I just saw that creature that had opened its eyes inside of you and it frightened me.

My mother – she once told me that when you love someone you have to accept everything about them which was why love is so rare in the world. I was too young to understand it then and she died shortly after that. My father, dry sobbing over top of her – I realized then that I didn't really like what love meant.

The ivory keys on my piano never sounded quite the same when I played them after that. The sounds were all off.

I'm sorry that I did this to you, Vincent Valentine. I know what you needed and what you wanted and I doubt that you'll ever understand why it was so wrong. I can't reason with the man that I saw up on that platform. I was half expecting you to shoot me instead of him. I was waiting for it. A very small part of me would've _welcomed_ it.

I still have nightmares, if it's any consolation. When this is all over, I'll turn it all off – I'll never fight again, I swear. I used to _love_ this Vincent. Fighting is like music – every movement is a chord in a subtly different key. It's more beautiful that playing; it's pure harmony. I'll never have that again. That's what I've lost during this war.

… Hojo was dying. Whatever he'd done to his body hadn't been enough, not against the freaks that we've become. Cloud – frightens me sometimes. People shouldn't be this strong. The truth is that I wear leather mostly to protect my hands, not my knuckles.

He'd been bleeding, gasping, dying. A man is a _man_, Vincent Valentine. It never gets any easier.

You levelled your gun but I was quicker. I was beside him in a moment, blocking your shot. You paused – fool; a younger you never would've hesitated, I don't think – and …

… He was frail, that man. Foaming at the mouth, clearly mad. I won't delude myself and say that it was mercy. His blood – there was a pool of it that I had neglected. It stained my legs – long rivers – but that's not I how I killed him. I took his head in my hands and for a moment it was almost comfort but he was too mad to see it. A man is easy enough to kill if you know the ways. My instructor… he never taught me these things.

You – I can see why you prefer a gun, Vincent Valentine. I have to _touch_ people when I kill them. He was alive and _then he was dead_. I did that, Vincent. I did that and nobody else.

A man is just a corpse in an instant - proteins and carbohydrates, nothing more. Nothing more than that.

His head fell with a bump and his neck lay at an unnatural angel. His eyes looked up, glassy, and I stared at them, empty. There was nothing there, Vincent, nothing at all…

My mother once told me that I have to take some things on faith but I never understood her. I _still_ don't understand her… but I will indulge in the blasphemy and say that it was faith that moved me to murder that man. For all your extolling about sin, Vincent Valentine, I don't think that you really understand it at all. You always sound like you're quoting someone when you talk about religion.

Sin was holding that man's life in my hands and stealing it away. Crushing it. That was the _essence_ of sin.

… Faith was doing it for you. So that you wouldn't have to. That's all.

Let your ghosts lie, Vincent Valentine. I've taken this one for you. Yes, Vincent, I know what it means to be haunted. You hardly have the monopoly, you know. I envy the fact that you never have to _touch_ them. I'll carry the sound of that man dying until I the day I die… there are many kinds of ghosts, Vincent Valentine. Sometimes the ghost of a sound can haunt a person. I can still hear it Vincent and I can still feel it; I doubt that you've ever felt the same.

I saw in your eyes that you hated me then. Your eyes were red – too red – and Death Penalty was gone in an instant and you were suddenly walking away. I kneeled in that man's blood and Cloud looked at me, blue eyes not wide but carrying a look that I hadn't seen before – like he didn't recognize me anymore… or perhaps like he was seeing me for the first time. Ultima was away then and all that was left was the blood on my Premium Heart. Oh gods, the irony – the irony is not lost on me.

You both left me alone but I hadn't expected anything else. One last laugh for the ghost of the man that I had created. I wish that I could still regret Vincent but I can't. I don't want your sympathy or even your understanding. Like I said, I can't reason with the thing that I saw alive inside of you up there. So I won't regret. I _can't_.

I'll never apologize for what I've done though. I will never regret it. Even if we've done _nothing right here_, this is one thing that I'll never treat as ambiguous. You I will make my absolute. For once in your life, Vincent Valentine, somebody tried to save you. You can hate me all you like but that's what it was.

Faith – faith is like breathing when it's natural. I didn't hesitate. You may never forgive me for this but you didn't pull the trigger when I blocked your shot.

That's the man that I was trying to save. You can do the rest.

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End file.
